The revelation comes in a recently published book called the "Diary of a Papist", by author and journalist Gianluca Barile.

The book, full of news and information about the Church and papacy, carries a rumour from Cardinal Francesco Marchisano, a good friend of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, recalling that had Bergoglio been elected he would have taken the name Pope John.

Quoting Cardinal Marchisano, "John, I would have called myself John, like the Good Pope; I would have been completely inspired by him", writes longtime Italian Vaticanista Gianluca Barile.

RNS reports that at the 2005 Conclave to elect a pope, after three rounds of voting, Bergoglio received 40 votes and ran second to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who received 72 votes.

78 votes were required for Ratzinger to be elected by the two-thirds margin.

Again according to RNS, hoping to avoid prolonging the conclave and creating divisions, Bergoglio apparently signalled his supporters not to back him, leaving the way free for Ratzinger to be elected.

In the intervening eight years Bergoglio obviously changed his mind on what name he would take, and instead of being Pope John XXIV he became the first Pope Francis in history.

With only one miracle attributed to John XXIII, Pope Francis, in April, will canonise John XXIII.

Sources

• LaStampa
• RNS

The article says a priest in the commercial centre of Buenos Aires was finishing distributing Communion at Mass in 1996 when a woman told him she had found a discarded host on a candleholder at the back of the church.

The priest placed the host in a container of water and put it in the tabernacle. A week later he discovered that the host had turned into a bloody substance.

According to the 2010 article by Father M. Piotrowski in Love One Another magazine, the priest informed Cardinal Bergoglio, who had the host professionally photographed.

For several years the host remained in secret in the tabernacle, then the cardinal decided to have it scientifically analysed in New York by a team of scientists who did not know its origin.

One of the scientists, Dr Frederic Zugiba, a cardiologist and forensic pathologist, determined that the substance was a fragment of heart muscle containing human DNA.

He said the presence of a large number of white blood cells indicated that the heart was alive when the sample was taken.

"What is more," he said, "these white blood cells had penetrated the tissue, which further indicates that the heart had been under severe stress, as if the owner had been beaten severely about the chest."

The tests were witnessed by two Australians, journalist Mike Willesee and lawyer Ron Tesoriero.

Willesee, formerly a leading television journalist, had been brought back to his Catholic faith through filming a woman with stigmata and documenting Eucharistic miracles.

When Willesee told Dr Zugiba that the analysed sample came from a consecrated host, the doctor said: "How and why a consecrated host would change its character and become living human flesh and blood will remain an inexplicable mystery to science — a mystery totally beyond her competence."

Sources:

Love One Another

Milagro Eucaristico Buenos Aires Argentina (YouTube video)

The Conversion of Mike Willesee (ABC Compass)

Image: The Absolute Primacy of Christ

"It seems my brother cardinals went almost to the end of the world [to choose a pope]," he told the crowd in St Peter's Square in his first address, a joke which belied his image as the cardinal who never smiles.

Up until 13 March, he was Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires.

Pundits did not see him as a favourite for the job of succeeding Benedict XIV and his advanced age - at 76, he is just two years younger than Benedict at the time of his election in 2005 - may surprise those expecting a younger man as the 266th pope.

However, he appeals to both Church conservatives and reformers, being seen as orthodox on sexual matters, for instance, but liberal on social justice.

"We live in the most unequal part of the world, which has grown the most yet reduced misery the least," he was quoted as saying by the National Catholic Reporter at a gathering of Latin American bishops in 2007.

"The unjust distribution of goods persists, creating a situation of social sin that cries out to Heaven and limits the possibilities of a fuller life for so many of our brothers."

He was born on 17 December 1936 in Buenos Aires, of Italian descent.

According to his official Vatican biography, he was ordained as a Jesuit in 1969 and went on to study in Argentina and Germany.

A bishop from 1992, he became Cardinal of Buenos Aires in 1998, and at the 2005 conclave was seen as a contender for the papacy.

His election took many by surprise in his home city, where many had thought his age ruled him out, the BBC's Marcia Carmo reports from there.

But any surprise soon gave way to the jubilant blaring of car horns on the streets.

As Cardinal Bergoglio, his sermons always had an impact in Argentina and he often stressed social inclusion, indirectly criticising governments that did not pay attention to those on the margins of society, our correspondent says.

Francesca Ambrogetti, who co-authored a biography of him, told Reuters news agency that part of his public appeal lay in his humble lifestyle. Continue reading

Sources

• BBC
• Image: The Guardian
  

See also:

• Politico
• Heavy
• The Telegraph